A new study published in the Journal of Social and Personal Relationships suggests the discrepancy might be due to an “orgasm pursuit gap” between men and women.

Researchers have long known that straight women statistically have fewer orgasms than their male partners. One particularly depressing 2018 study found that 87% of husbands compared to 49% of wives reported consistently experiencing an orgasm.

While you might assume the chasm would close as women aged and became more sexually experienced and assertive in bed, the gap lingers through a woman’s lifetime.

But no such orgasm gap exists when women are masturbating, or are having sex with other women ― suggesting the problem lies somewhere in a tilted sexual script shared by men and women.

A new study published in the Journal of Social and Personal Relationships gives that cultural conditioning a name: the “orgasm pursuit gap.”

In plain English, lead researcher Carly Wolfer says the orgasm goal pursuit “refers to how much someone wants an orgasm to happen ― whether it’s their own or their partner’s ― and how much effort they put into making it happen.”

To figure out how men and women’s effort differs, Wolfer, a doctoral candidate in social psychology at CUNY Graduate Center, studied the 21-day online “sex diaries” of 127 heterosexual adults in monogamous relationships (ages 18-40).

She found that men’s orgasms were disproportionately prioritised during sex by both parties: Straight men tend to focus on their own orgasm and feel supported by their partner in that pursuit. Conveniently enough, straight women’s focus in bed lies in getting their male partner to climax, too.

Men reported experiencing orgasms in 90% of their sexual encounters, while women reported orgasms in only 54% of their encounters, the researchers found. Men also reported significantly higher levels of overall sexual satisfaction and satisfaction with their orgasms compared to........

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